Formosa Plastics agrees to pay USD50M for Texas Gulf pollution

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics Corp. (part of Formosa Petrochemical) has agreed to pay USD50 million to settle allegations that a company plant in Texas spilled tons of pellets into waterways near the Gulf of Mexico, reported CityNews.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid announced the agreement involving the Formosa plant in Point Comfort last Tuesday. A judge in Houston will consider approving the settlement, to be paid over five years into a fund supporting environmental water projects.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in June ruled in favour of people who alleged the Formosa plant violated clean water laws through discharges into Lavaca Bay and Cox Creek that began in 2016.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, representing plaintiffs, said the consent decree means Formosa agrees to "zero discharge" of plastics and will clean existing pollution.

A message left for Formosa wasn’t immediately returned Tuesday.

As MRC informed earlier, Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics has taken off-stream its polypropylene (PP) unit owing to technical glitch. A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company halted operations at the unit in end-September, 2019. The unit remained off-line until mid-October, 2019. Located at Ningbo in China, the No. 2 PP unit has a production capacity of 280,000 mt/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 796,120 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 11% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of Covestro's PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew in the first three quarters of 2019 by 52% year on year, according to MRC's DataScope report.

Thus, this figure increased from 1,400 tonnes in January-September 2018 to 2,100 tonnes.

Covestro's material accounted for 69% of the total PC imports to the country in the first nine months of 2019 versus 54% a year earlier.

Company's shipments of material to Ukraine were 231 tonnes last months, compared to 139 tonnes in September 2018.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew in the first three quarters of 2019 by 19% year on year to 3,000 tonnes, according to MRC's DataScope report.

This figure was at 2,500 tonnes in January-September 2018.

In terms of technology, the share of injection moulding PC grades decreased to 51% (1,500 tonnes) for this period from 64% (1,600 tonnes) a year earlier. The share of extrusion grade PC rose from 15% (400 tonnes) of the total imports to 30% (900 tonnes), whereas the share of blow moulding PC grades dropped slightly from 21% (500 tonnes) 20% (600 tonnes).

Last month's imports of PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew by 50% year on year: from 273 tonnes to 410 tonnes in September 2018.

August shipments of material were 383 tonnes.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's two largest producers of high density polyethylene (HDPE) - Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen - have resumed their operations after long maintenance works, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plants' customers said Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen had completely resumed their HDPE production by Monday, 21 October, after the shutdown for turnarounds. The outages were planned and began on 6 September and 26 September, respectively. These are the last scheduled turnarounds at Russian plants this year.

PJSC "Kazanorgsintez" (part of TAIF Group) is one of Russia's largest plants. Kazanorgsintez produces 40% of overall Russian polyethylene (PE) and is the country's largest exporter. To date, the plant produces PE, polycarbonate (PC), PE pipes, phenol, acetone, bisphenol A. Kazanorgsintez is Russia's only PC producer. It manufactures a total of 170 items of products. Kazanorgsintez's annual output is 1.6 million tonnes. The plant's annual HDPE production capacity is 540,000 tonnes, its output totalled 401,500 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 1% year on year.

Stavrolen's (part of Lukoil) HDPE production capacity is 300,000 tonnes. The plant's overall HDPE output exceeded 214,200 tonnes in January-September 2019, down by 4% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Fuhaichuang Petroleum and Petrochemical, formerly known as Dragon Aromatics, shut one of its two PX lines at Gulei, Fujian province on 14 October, reported S&P Global with reference to a source close to the company.

The source added that the shutdown was due to the poor margins caused by the narrow spread between PX and MX.

It was not immediately clear when the plant will restart, but market sources had earlier said the company was planning to shut a line for about one month in October.

The company has two lines that both can produce 800,000 mt/year of PX.

PX is a feedstock for the production of purified terephthalic acid (PTA). PTA is used to produce polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which, in its turn, is used in the manufacturing of plastic bottles, films, packaging containers, in the textile and food industries.

According to MRC's DataScope report, Chinese bottle grade PET deliveries to Russia increased 34% in the first eight months of 2019 to 95,600 tonnes. China accounted for 90% of the total imports, compared to 85% a year earlier.
August imports of material from China decreased by 41% to 7,600 tonnes from 12,800 tonnes in July. Jiangsu Sanfangxiang, Yisheng, Wankai and Sinopec were the leading Chinese suppliersof material to the Russian market.

Fujian Fuhaichuang Petroleum Chemical Industry Co. Ltd. refines and distributes petrochemical products. The Company produces benzenes, liquefied petroleum gases, and other products. Fujian Fuhaichuang Petroleum Chemical Industry also provides petrochemical equipment maintenance services.
MRC